Saturday, February 25, 2012

In the Vortex of Religious Death

God has spoken. His words are life. And His blood is eternal life. Stop for a moment and look at the spinning vortex of religious death. Listen to all the human voices that deny His words and speak their own. All around us the whirlwind swirls with demonic versions of Christianity that appeal to the flesh. If these are not the last days I shudder to think what they would be.Like a giant puzzle neatly put together but then completely broken apart by a swirling wind, so is God’s truth in this culture. And you have pieces of truth here and pieces of truth there and they are all mixed in with falsehoods and error and man made schemes. Imagine a bridge spanning a deep and yawning chasm. If you remove a part of the railing it makes it more dangerous but it still is intact. But if you remove a piece of the floor the entire bridge collapses. No one can cross anymore.This is what has happened in today’s Christian community. Considerable parts of divine truth have been removed, replaced, and in general manipulated in order to tickle itching ears and soothe the fallen religious consciences of millions of church goers. It is not just unfortunate, but it is certain death. There is only one guide that can point and lead us into a secure eternity. That is God’s Word.I Pet.1:23-25 - Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.The music is over and the crowd begins to quiet down. A man rises and turns toward the crowd, a Bible in hand. He places the Bible on the wooden pulpit. He begins to tell a joke. The people laugh. The man holds up his Bible and the people hold up theirs as well. They recite the same mantra they recited last week. The man’s smile is infectious, and he and his wife look like they stepped off the top of a wedding cake.It does not matter what day it is. The man talks about being persistent and determined. He speaks about embracing your own self worth. He speaks about advancement and prosperity. He may say the word Jesus at the very end, but Jesus seems so out of place in the entire spectacle. As I watch and listen I can imagine some movies I saw decades ago called “A Thief in the Night” and “The Mark of the Beast”. It depicted what the earth would be like when the Bride is taken away. And there it was, a smiling preacher telling encouraging stories about how human effort is divine in and of itself. It’s as if these men have thrown out God’s Word and started all over from scratch by creating their own Bible.Ihad just been saved back then, but I never realized that these prophetic movies and their portrayal of lost preachers would be realized even before God comes for His church. And it isn’t just the Joel Osteens of this culture, but there are a literal myriad of false teachers and preachers swirling around and being spread through television, radio, and all kinds of literature and recordings. We are surrounded by damnable lies from all corners.Regardless of where you live these kinds of churches are within driving distance, and if you are a "shut in" the television will gladly supply you with an abundance of heresy. Christian television is a disgrace and serves up a steady diet of apostasy while making a few men and women rich. The situation is much worse than can be adequately described and understood. I firmly believe no orthodox preacher should ever pay to be on Christian television and lend it any credibility. Go on secular television and reach the lost.We stand in the eye of a vortex of religious death. Many places around the world have to deal with a few cults, but the basic gospel is preached in their churches. China, India, South America, and others have their problems, but they pale in comparison to the whirlwind of apostasy that is sweeping across the United States and Canada. We live in a culture and religious climate of death itself. Yes, like a marionette the strings of the flesh make the lifeless human puppets seem to dance around and enjoy much activity, but in reality they are dead and pursuing the path that leads to eternal death.There will be millions of sinners who have been deceived by false preachers who will meet the second death. They believed the lies spoken by heretics who used the name of Christ for their own benefit and made merchandise of millions of people. There will be millions of patriotic, religious people who will be forever separated from God because they were deceived when they saw born again believers joining forces with them and the evil one convinced them that the were alright in God’s eyes.Do not remain ignorant, if you join your life to a fallen cause and become yoked with lost souls you have become a tool of deception. The true and faithful believer should never be joined and compromised by unbelievers over abortion, homosexuality, marriage, nationalism, or any issue. They have no part in us if they do not know Christ, and they will never taste our salt or see our light if we are all in one giant melting pot. I wonder just how many millions of unbelievers in America feel very religious and God fearing since they embrace certain moral issues and they revere the founding fathers? And how many believers are reinforcing that deception? Think long and hard about that since for millions eternity hangs in the balance.This current voracious hunger for spiritual licentiousness is destroying the hope for millions of souls who might otherwise be presented with the truth. The days are evil, and like the sound of a speeding locomotive the vortex of religious death continues to systematically gather passengers and carry them to a certain eternal death. The situation is desperate. We must watch and pray and be a light to the darkened souls who walk among us. Let the dead bury the dead. Let the fallen expend their energies in politics. Let the lost pursue success and money.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

That's pretty much exactly what I felt like when I first came to Christ. For years, after getting out of the occult, I followed many false teachers - and didn't ever read the Bible. Finally, I felt like my head was swimming with truth and lies - but I couldn't tell the difference between them!When I opened God's word and started to read it was like a balm to my feverish brain.At that point I didn't care what the truth was - whether I would like it or not. I just wanted God's truth and nothing less. The time for indulging in my own search for a "truth" I could live with or accept or even make up was over.I pray these people will also come to the end of themselves and get tired of false "truth" and become hungry and thirsty for the real thing. Lisa

I remember when I was truly born-again at 33, being swept up by the last days prophecy teachings, which were very informative and revealing. These evangelists, however, were spinning the 'good' versus 'evil' forces by calling out where these prophecies would be birth, by naming nations. Iraq was bad, US was good, and so on. The forces of Islam, forces of new agism, forces of rebellious socialistic superpowers would be our enemy in the last days.

However, I took it all in stride and didn't make any judgments on it at the time. At this present time, all those speculations on who is evil don't point to the above. It is pointing right back at us, here in Canada and the United States. I'm seeing that the very 'evil' that the last days scenario describes is all around us. The greed, impatience, technological invasion of privacy, wolves in sheep's clothing, rebellion, incontinence, has infiltrated the 'church'. It's the western church attitude that could usher in a New World Order.

I hope I'm wrong; but the very place of refuge that I want so much to turn to (church) feels like a foreign place to me now.

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Additional communications to me may be e-mailed to spcrick@msn.com. Any negative e-mails will be deleted without response, however sincere questions will be answered. I seek edification and deeper knowledge of Christ and His truth not a destructive and meaningless religious chatter. May God's Spirit open all of our hearts to Him.

About Me

I am an ordained Baptist minister but more importantly I am a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. I was saved in 1975 watching Billy Graham on television after having lived a wicked and Christless life. I graduated with a three year degree from Trinity Bible College in Dunedin, Florida. I have three children, two grandsons, and one granddaughter. I not only see the obvious falling away of the present day church, but I humbly acknowledge that we all are in desperate need of a massive revival. I hope this blog ministers to you, and may Jesus Himself receive all the preeminence!
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